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I always thought that public readings were a thing of the past. I was certain that public readings had finally been replaced by the more enchanting genre of slam poetry. How wrong I was.
I last week enjoyed a reading organised by the Zimbabwe Writers Association at the Book Café. Three local writers, namely Vitalis Nyawaranda, Virginia Phiri and Tinashe Muchuri, were reading and telling the story of their lives to fellow writers and the reading public.
Prolific bi-lingual novelist and University of Zimbabwe professor, Vitalis Nyawaranda is an intensely private and unassuming man. Although most of us have read his books for our exams in school, you may easily walk past him on the street! He walks into the Book Café, sits down humbly and looks down at the floor. “I am uneasy in social gatherings,” he says later on. He has always been a shy person, he confesses. “My mother was worried and she even thought I would not be able to find some girl to marry.” There is laughter all over and soon the tension subsides.
An author of over 12 novels, which include popular titles like “The Swinging Graduate”, “Mutunhu Une Mago” and “Ndiani Acharima Gura?”
Nyawaranda’s last major title is “Chakauya Chokumayadhi”, published by the now defunct Literature Bureau way back in 1997.
“People often ask me, ‘Where are you? Have you stopped writing?’” he says.
Over the years, Nyawaranda had moved over to strictly academic writing and publishing in scholarly journals. He says he had been too disillusioned to produce fiction due to the high levels of local book piracy. This shocked him and drove him away from his creative life.
Nyawaranda looks around the auditorium and the pain in his eyes is clear, especially when he says, “Not that we are mercenaries as writers but we need encouragement for our efforts. We need to put food on the table. The worst part is that people, including the writer’s relatives, are even looking forward to be given free copies. ”
Although he appears to have quitted writing fiction, he confesses that it is not easy to quit. “A writer is always a writer. If you do not write when you should write, you might even fall sick!”
He says he was inspired to write after reading Mungoshi’s “Makunun’unu Maodzamoyo”. He was in Form 2. For him it was not an easy road. But when he finally broke into print, he gained so much confidence that at the height of his career, he would produce at least a novel per year.
“Writing is a lonely business and all these years, I wrote at the expense of my social life.”
Later on, Nyawaranda reads from his novel “Barika Remashefu” which is a story about corruption in high places and abuse of power. There is silence as the audience follow his voice. His voice quivers, he looks into space and stops. There is applause all round and Nyawaranda appears to smile before leaving the podium.
It is Virginia Phiri’s turn to go to the microphone. She is calm and collected. She is a writer and semi-retired accountant. Phiri, one of local writers who have successfully taken to self-publishing, is also an expert on African orchids, especially the Zimbabwean varieties. Her first solo book “Desperate” was published in 2002 followed by “Destiny” in 2006. Her third book “Highway Queen” was published in 2010. “Desperate” is a collection of stories about prostitutes. It is a subject close to her heart as she was once housed and protected by a group of prostitutes in the mid-1970s when she was in danger as a result of her activism during the Second Chimurenga.
“What I write about, the so called taboo subjects, is an area generally overlooked in our community,” she says. “But first, I was a rock star in the 70’s in the city of Bulawayo before turning to writing,” she confesses.
She would scribble but says that she was very shy to share her work (particularly “Diary of a Sex Worker”) till she met Norma Kitson and Chiedza Musengezi at the Zimbabwe Women Writers. She looks up and her face brightens. “Now, I have found a niche. Writing about taboos is my line of business,” she says and smiles for the first time. She adds, “In fact, writing keeps me sane.”
She says after “Highway Queen”, there is going to be another novel, “Grey Angels”, another novel on taboo. The novel started when she was on a writing residency in Munich, Germany. Phiri says sometimes she has to “work on it like a devil.” It is a story about family secrets that spill into the public sphere.
“When you have a story on your mind, you feel like you are pregnant and there is always the pressure to want to deal with the matter.”
She reads from one of her works and her feel for the life in her characters is very infectious, filling the auditorium with a certain aura.
She says she has an essay on Wangari Maathai, the founder of the Green Belt Movement and the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. The essay is in a book already published in German but it is going to be translated in English very soon. Other Zimbabwean writers featured in the essay collection are Tendai Huchu who wrote on revered spirit medium Mbuya Nehanda and Chirikure Chirikure who wrote on Angeline Kamba.
Next on stage is Tinashe Muchuri, staff writer at Parade magazine, the former secretary general of the Zimbabwe Writers Association itself. He is multi-gifted because he is a performing poet, actor and writer. His poems are studied widely in Zimbabwean schools as they appear in a number of set anthologies.
With great expectation in his eyes, Muchuri says that early next year, he is set to release his debut novel called “Chibarabada” through Ignatius Mabasa’s Bhabhu Books. This is a story that revolves around chibarabada, an illicit brew. It proceeds in the form(s) of first person, second person and third person narratives, (all in one script), creating the impression of a whole community talking at once to itself and beyond itself. Sometimes it is Shingi (the main character) who narrates the story, sometimes it is his uncle/rival, sometimes it is the two chibarabada drunkards who are also chiefs at the town waste dumb and sometimes it is narrated by an omniscient voice periodically describing the town waste dumb. This novel also incorporates folk tale, folk song and contemporary jesting.
Muchuri reads from the manuscript. He goes for a section in which characters Tino and Meno are conversing. Through their deep drunkenness you have access to their heavy social criticism. Muchuri also reads a section in which Meno sings powerful traditional songs “Yakarira mucherechere” and “Makunun’unu kuwa kwedamba” and the actor in him comes out. There is silence and smiles across the hall.
Later on, Muchuri stands up to perform one of his poems. He whistles as he scans the audience. Whistling has become a part of his performances. He whistles to himself for such a long time that you think he has forgotten that he is not alone. Finally, he goes into his popular poem “Chigaro” and the house comes down. In “Chigaro”, the persona is in deep conversation with a park bench, asking it how it feels to accommodate/receive different bottoms, one after another, of so many people. During the question and answer session the three writers share their views on their unique experiences as artist and family people. The German scholar, Flora Veit Wild made a surprise appearance at the reading and there was general excitement as people went down memory lane.
Earlier in his welcome remarks, Writer and University of Zimbabwe lecturer Musaemura Zimunya, known to have had clashes with Veit Wild over certain issues regarding the late legendary writer Dambudzo Marechera, had said, “I know that in the past few years we crossed swords but we have all moved on and let bygones be bygones. As we all know, she (Veit Wild) has contributed enormously to the preservation of the Dambudzo Marechera legacy”.
If truth be told, we definitely need more of these literary evenings or public readings.
Online Reporter